kitchen as social space

[Alexandre Bougakov]

Hello Margarita,

Monday, July 10, 2000, 9:04:38 PM, you wrote:

MN> Are there studies of the Russian kitchen as social space out there
MN> that I am missing?

What  for I do like this list is not only the chance for me to improve
my  English  by  helping others with my knowledge of Russian as native
speaker,  but  also  interesting  thoughts. "Russian kitchen as social
space" - it is very interesting!

But  what kind of study do you perform? Is it sociological, historical
or  literary  study?  And  what  period  of  Russian  history  are you
interested in? If it is first half of the 19th century - it is Gogol -
see  his  fantastic and reach descriptions, and the historical sources
of that time. If you are interested in the period between 1850-1913 -
it is completely different.

If  you  are  looking for some material from Soviet period of history,
there are many different periods with their own distinctive marks. The
time before WWII is the time of communal apartments (and barracks) and
kitchens  (read  about  "Woronja  slobodka"  in  Bulgakov's  "Master i
Margarita" or in Ilf and Petrov's "12 stul'ev", for example). The time
of  "zastoy"  (since  1960)  in Soviet history showed the shift of the
social  role  of  kitchen  room  in  the  society's  life.  Since  the
government  started to build more houses ("chrostchovki" and later new
residential  areas in cities) and many families were becoming a chance
to  get private apartments and the role of the house as personal space
(not shared with other people, just with relatives and guests/friends)
was growing. That is why the role of kitchen room as the only place to
speak  after  the  supper,  discuss  problems and maybe tell couple of
anecdotes grew.

This  can  be  studied using the social stratification approach, using
social  lingustics  and  many  many  others.  Margarita,  what are you
particulary  interested in? Answer, please, and I will try to help you
with it.


Cordially, Alexandre Bougakov <mailto:bougakov at mail.ru>

Sociological faculty of the Higher School of Economics
(http://www.hse.ru/fakultet/sociology/default.html),
Moscow, Russian Federation

My website is http://SocioLink.narod.ru/ (thousands of sociology
related links on the Web - in Russian, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4
or higher is required)

My PGP key ID is 0x97F20C99, Key Fingerprint is C83C 5998 F43A BEB7
70DF B8FC CC5E 960E 97F2 0C99 (PGP version is 6.0.2i)

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